retweet ≠ agreement
Ottawa Valley
Joined November 2009
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Don Taylor retweeted
February 2014. Maidan Square, Kyiv. John McCain filming the protests, standing shoulder to shoulder with US Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt, while Victoria Nuland stands just behind them.
A striking snapshot of Washington’s direct involvement in Ukraine’s political upheaval.
The same officials who spoke so confidently about democracy were right there amid the turmoil surrounding the removal of a democratically elected president.
This raises an uncomfortable question: was this truly about defending Ukrainian democracy, or about Washington advancing its own geopolitical agenda at Ukraine’s expense?
Don Taylor retweeted
As chair of Brookfield and acting as an economic advisor to Justin Trudeau, Carney secured a $276,000,000 loan for Brookfield from the state-owned Bank of China
Last week Carney announced a $2,000,000,000 subsidy fund for heat pumps, immensely benefiting Enercare — Enercare was acquired by Brookfield in 2018
Don Taylor retweeted
Eighty-three per cent of donations to Trudeau’s Papineau riding in 2016 came from outside of Quebec. Two thirds came from around 50 Chinese donors and were given in the span of 48 hours between July 6-7th.
Elections Canada shows three donations received on July 6, 2016 from Rongxiang “Tiger” Yuan, totalling $4,299.30 - reportedly a former high-ranking officer in the CCP’s People’s Liberation Army.
Interesting timing.
Credit: Bob Mackin
thebreaker.news/business/tru…
Don Taylor retweeted
If you were wondering why Canada isn't a world leader in AI... Today @YorkUniversity posted a job opening for a tenured professor of Artificial Intelligence:
"...this position is open only to qualified researchers who self-identify as women or gender non-conforming (e.g., genderfluid, nonbinary, Two-Spirit, trans man, trans woman)."
Don Taylor retweeted
Today, Mark flew his jet to Sherbrooke and back, to make an announcement about heat pumps.
Heat pumps. To save the environment.
To fly there and spend a few minutes in front of the cameras, Mark burned 1,800L of jet fuel and emitted over 4,500kg of CO2.
Don Taylor retweeted
“Affordability is the best it’s been in over a decade” -@MarkJCarney
Don Taylor retweeted
I'm a broken record here, but Mark Carney decided this needed to be rewarded with $600 million in taxpayer money, statehood recognition and expedited status for thousands of unvetted Gazans to live among us. I'm not sure how you expect him to run Canada functionally.
TERRORIST: “Hello, dad! Dad, I am inside Mefalsim [Israel]—open your WhatsApp right now, and see all the killed. Look at how many I killed with my own hands! Your son killed Jews!”
FATHER: “Allahu Akhbar, Allahu Akhbar! May God protect you.”
TERRORIST: “This is inside Mefalsim, father. I am talking to you from the phone of a Jew—I killed her and her husband—I killed ten with my own hands.”
“Open your phone and see how many I killed, father. Open your phone, I am calling you on WhatsApp.”
FATHER: Crying (unintelligible).
TERRORIST: “I am in Meflasim, father. I killed ten! Ten! Ten, with my own bare hands! Their blood is on my hands! Let me talk to Mom—”
MOTHER: “Oh, my son, may God protect you!”
TERRORIST: “I killed ten all by myself, mother!”
FATHER: “May God bring you home safely.”
TERRORIST: “Father, go back to WhatsApp! I want to call you live from Mefalsim!”
MOTHER: “I wish I was there with you!”
TERRORIST: “Mother, your son is a hero. I was the first to enter under the guidance and with the help of Allah. Father, lift your head—lift your head!”
(Talking to terrorists on the scene: “Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill them! Inside, inside, into the city!”)
BROTHER: “Mahmoud, Mahmoud. Come back [to Gaza]—that's enough, return.”
TERRORIST: “Return? There is no return—it is victory or martyrdom. My mother gave birth to me for Islam, Alaa. Are you serious? How will I return? Look at WhatsApp—look at your phone—look at all the dead.”
Don Taylor retweeted
Bruce Pardy just described something Canadians have been living through so gradually that many have stopped noticing how extraordinary it is.
Government now has a say in virtually everything. We are taxed at work, at the store, at the pump and at home. Property increasingly feels less like something you own and more like something you’re permitted to keep—provided you continue paying for the privilege.
Then Pardy says it plainly:
“Canada has become a grift.”
Listen to his argument and then look around. How many layers of government, regulation, taxation, licensing and protected interests now stand between Canadians and the simple business of living their own lives?
At what point did we become so accustomed to it that we stopped asking where legitimate government ends and our individual liberty begins?
We still call ourselves free. Perhaps it’s worth occasionally taking inventory of how much freedom still belongs to us without permission, a licence, a tax, a fee or the government’s approval.
Perhaps the most unsettling thing about Bruce Pardy’s speech isn’t how radical it sounds.
It’s how familiar it feels.
@PardyBruce
Canada in 2026: a managerial society where government has a say in everything. Property is a privilege, taxes are inescapable, and personal choices are dictated. StateOfOurNation.ca Gala 2026, Burlington, ON #Canada #StateOfOurNation #Gala2026
Don Taylor retweeted
It has come to my attention that I have been denounced by @Advocates_Soc for criticizing judicial decisions — and yes, individual judges.
Here's the thing. When someone, for example, spends her lawyerly career writing op-eds in favour of migration and calling herself an activist, and then becomes a federal judge, and from that seat allows all sorts of undesirables to remain in Canada on weak grounds, people are free to draw a connection from A to B.
When a judge, for example, spends his lawyer years advocating fiercely for more race-based law, and then later throws out gun charges of black men on his (unsupported) assertion that police were racist during their arrests, people are free to question whether he's really a fair adjudicator.
When a judge, for example, says that a ban on drug trafficking is unconstitutional, and then *applauds* vigilante drug dealers for their self-proclaimed safe supply program — applauds them for supporting the business of organized crime and feeding the addictions of street people — that's beyond the pale. You're worried about democracy being poisoned? Worry about the judge who threw out Parliament's law against selling heroin because she felt it was "common sense" that it was supported by science.
I agree that it's not right to criticize a judge personally for impartially applying the law and coming to an unpopular decision (which they may even privately disagree with). But when their professional history, or their conduct in court, suggests allegiance to a cause that they happen to be ruling softly on, it will get noticed.
Bringing the administration of justice into disrepute is a two-way street, you know.
Don Taylor retweeted
Canada has been in a technical recession since late 2025/early 2026 and suffering a severe contraction in Real GDP per capita. The leadership is inept.
We're Getting Poorer: GDP per Capita in Canada
fraserinstitute.org/studies/…
Don Taylor retweeted
Canadians are being sold a deceptive picture of the federal government’s finances. That’s what my @financialpost article is about this week.
Prime Minister @markjcarney recently boasted that his government is “on track to balance the operating budget next year, one year ahead of schedule.”
Sounds impressive. Except there’s a rather large problem: the operating budget is a construct of the government’s own making, based on an old accounting trick - that I’ve written about for the last 18 months since the government adopted this horrible practice - that allows it to decide which spending counts and which spending gets moved into another column.
Imagine a couple whose paycheques don’t cover their spending, so they top up the difference every month using their home equity line of credit. One of them has an idea: split the household budget in two. Put the mortgage payments and new roof into an “investment” column. And why not the groceries? After all, well-fed kids grow into productive adults.
Move enough expenses into the investment column and - voilà!!The everyday household budget balances!! Problem solved!!
Except the line of credit keeps growing and the bank still wants its interest.
That’s essentially what the Carney government is asking Canadians to accept with its operating/capital budget framework. And the Parliamentary Budget Officer has, once again, demonstrated how easy it is to pull off this trick.
It starts with defining “capital” and making it so broad that it is easy to shift spending out of the operating budget without changing actual government spending or borrowing. The PBO previously estimated that the federal government’s measure of capital investment in the 2025 budget was overstated by roughly $94 billion compared with international practice.
That’s not fiscal discipline. It’s deceptive accounting presentation.
And here’s why it matters: public debt charges are expected to be $58.7 billion this fiscal year - more than Ottawa expects to collect from the GST. That’s roughly $1,400 for every Canadian, or $5,600 for a family of four. By 2030-31, those interest costs are projected to reach $80.9 billion.
Carney can call expenditures “capital.” He can celebrate balancing the “operating budget.” But none of that changes the amount Ottawa actually borrows or the interest Canadians have to pay.
Debt is debt is debt.
When the fall budget arrives, ignore the deceptive accounting labels and ask the question that actually matters: Is the government genuinely restraining spending and borrowing, or is it simply moving enough expenditures into another column to claim success?
A financially literate household wouldn’t pretend its debt disappeared because it changed the labels in its spreadsheet. Canadians shouldn’t accept that practice from their government either.
financialpost.com/personal-f…
Don Taylor retweeted
Andrew Coyne logic:
Paul St-Pierre Plamondon won a minority with only a 68% turnout. He does not have a mandate to hold a referendum on separation.
Mark Carney won a minority with only a 69% turnout. He does have a mandate to hold secret talks to join the European Union.
Don Taylor retweeted
Canada's plan to seek "associated country status" under the EU's proposed Cloud and AI Development Act would leave its privacy law, lawful access powers and cloud procurement subject to EU approval. Similar demands from the U.S. would cause outrage.
michaelgeist.ca/2026/10/what…
Don Taylor retweeted
They cheered the carbon tax for six years.
Then on March 14, 2025, his first day in office, Carney scrapped the consumer carbon tax. They cheered that too.
They cheered record immigration. They cheered when it got cut.
They booed pipelines for a decade.
Last November Carney signed a pipeline deal with Danielle Smith, and they cheered.
In September he welcomed an offer to make Canada an EU associate member. More applause.
They're not cheering for any of the policies.
They're cheering for Carney.
Don Taylor retweeted
Disastrous policies have disastrous consequences.
A Canadian company, Psiphon, built software that helps people in authoritarian countries get around censorship. Now it says it may have to leave Canada 🇨🇦
The reason: Bill C-22 would require telecoms and internet providers to build surveillance and monitoring capabilities into their systems for police and CSIS.
When privacy tools say they can't operate safely here, that's worth paying attention to.
Tech exodus begins, as predicted.
Don Taylor retweeted
“Maia Johnson, the American Democrat who is Carney’s chief operating officer, continues to get a free ride from a press corps that everyone knows would be all over what would be a massive scandal were a Conservative PM to hire a Republican operative to run Canada during a trade war with the US.” petermenzies.substack.com/p/…
Don Taylor retweeted
I've tried to steel-man this argument, and I just can't, so I'm asking for help. Why does Canada need more immigrants to stave off economic stagnation or decline? I mean, I get that it benefits business owners who want to depress wages, or people who invest in asset management companies or real estate and are happy to pull up the ladder behind them and screw over younger generations. Is that the whole of it? What am I missing?
Credible explanations must account for the fact that most immigrants now entering the country will never make a net fiscal contribution. This was evident even 20 years ago, when we took in far fewer immigrants, when a higher proportion of them were classified as 'skilled,' and when the 'skilled' stream still meant something. Explanations must also account for the ways that mass migration exacerbates collapsing birth rates, rather than compensating for them.
